Every ‘American Horror Story: Cult’ Character, Ranked by How Likely It Is That They’re a Murderous Clown (Photos)

"American Horror Story: Cult" really does have a clown-costumed murder cult in a the show's small Michigan town, and fans are speculating who's in on...

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Published 5:53 pm, Sunday, September 24, 2017

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Every ‘American Horror Story: Cult’ Character, Ranked by How Likely It Is That They’re a Murderous Clown (Photos)

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When “American Horror Story: Cult,” kicked off on Sept. 5, fans immediately started speculating that some of the weirdness between the show’s characters could be a clown cult conspiracy. Three episodes in, we now know the clowns are real and evidence is mounting that implicates plenty of people as members of the cult. Here’s every character, ranked by how likely each might be one of them.

Oz Mayfair-Richards (Cooper Dodson)

Seeing as Oz is a kid, we can be pretty sure he’s not a member of the clown murder cult. Despite his mom, Ally, seemingly unsure if she’s hallucinated all those clowns, Oz (and babysitter Winter) seems to be the only person who’s actually seen them. Maybe he’ll gather a clown-hunting posse of local kids to take them down, a la “It.”

Ally Mayfair-Richards (Sarah Paulson)

As the person who keeps being terrorized by clowns, it’s pretty clear that Ally’s not one of them. Though it seemed Ally might have imagined the clowns earlier in the season, it’s pretty clear now at least some of what she’s experiencing is actually happening. So why is the clown cult so obsessed with terrorizing, but not actually murdering, Ally? We’re still waiting to find out their motives.

Local news reporter Beverly Hope hasn’t been much of a character on “American Horror Story: Cult” just yet, but the fact that Adina Porter is back on the show after her role in “My Roanoke Nightmare” means she’ll likely become more important over time. Most journalists report the news rather than make it, and while Hope is a bit of a sensationalist, that doesn’t seem like it’s extending to clown-mask murder.

Ivy Mayfair-Richards (Alison Pill)

Fans immediately started to believe Ivy might be in on the clown cult after the first episode, when clowns repeatedly tormented her wife, Ally, but Ivy saw nothing. But the couple’s son, Oz, has proven the clowns are real, so the theory that Ivy is gaslighting Ally and scaring her with clowns still isn’t disproven.

Detective Samuels (Colton Haynes)

The police detective who keeps showing up to investigate possibly fake clown sightings and the actual murders of Ally and Ivy’s neighbors, Tom and Marylin Chang, Samuels is pretty dull so far. But in Episode 3, there’s a new bit of information implicating him — he seems to be dating Harrison Wilton. We already know Harrison is connected to Kai Anderson, the apparent cult leader — which makes Samuels all the more suspicious.

Meadow and her husband Harrison sure are definitely up to something. They’re the couple that filmed Kai getting beaten by migrant workers, and conveniently missed (or cut out) the part where he incited the violence by yelling racial slurs and throwing a condom full of urine at them. By the end of Episode 3, however, there’s a suggestion they’re not actually cult members — because they might actually be cult victims.

Harrison Wilton (Billy Eichner)

Meadow’s husband is a gun nut and has a bunch of huge barrels of something weird in his garage. He also mentions the financial troubles the couple had, which were conveniently helped when the former owners of their house, the Changs, were murdered — something that benefited Kai as well. Hanging out with Kai certainly made Harrison look guilty, but when Episode 3 ended by suggesting he and Meadow had been attacked by the clowns, things got a little murkier.

Winter Anderson (Billie Lourd)

Kai’s sister is working on an agenda of weirdness, and it’s tough to say what her endgame is. She’s definitely planting some weird ideas in Oz’s head, and after Episode 2’s bathtub scene, one wonders if she’s messing with Ally on purpose. Since she and Oz were present for the Changs’ murders, though, there’s evidence she’s just a weird girl and not a murderer clown.

Chaz Bono’s character Gary Longstreet only showed up briefly in the first episode of “American Horror Story: Cult,” but it was a pretty pointed moment. A cashier at a grocery store, Longstreet said Ally imagined all those clowns who chased her through the store. We’re still not clear on the line between reality and fantasy for Ally, though — so maybe Longstreet is just a regular Trump supporter and not a culty one.

Dr. Rudy Vincent (Cheyenne Jackson)

Ally’s therapist shot up the list with a few key bits of information in Episode 3. He knew about the phobia of the woman who was murdered with her husband at the start of the episode. In fact, the pair were killed in line with her fears immediately after leaving his office. And what’s with those weird smiley face buttons he was arranging on his desk? The evidence is circumstantial, but it’s mounting.

Kai Anderson (Evan Peters)

It’s clear Kai has a plan for something related to reshaping society in the wake of Donald Trump’s election. He’s also personally benefited from the clown murders of the Changs, since that freed up the city council seat he’s now after (not to mention that Chang previously insulted Kai in front of the council). If anybody’s leading the clown cult, it’s probably Kai.

Twisty the Clown (John Carroll Lynch)

There’s no denying that Twisty the Clown is literally a murderous clown. So far, though, he doesn’t seem to be a real murderous clown, but a fictional one. He’s only appeared in Oz’s comic books and dreams, so he might just be a tormenting, gross-faced monster showing up to confuse the other characters about what’s real and what’s in their heads.